


worlds arise as she lets you come in

by imeldas



Category: Maging Sino Ka Man (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 12:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14136132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imeldas/pseuds/imeldas
Summary: Imelda walks as fast as she can—away from her, away from everyone else.





	worlds arise as she lets you come in

**Author's Note:**

> a novelisation of imelda and monique's first onscreen meeting. i am _obsessed_ with every second of that wordless interaction; how much emotion and intensity is packed in imelda's gaze, in monique's shoulders as she tries to shake off manuel's hands on her, in imelda's inconspicuous absence from the scene when the camera gives the viewers a bird's-eye view. oh, imelda.

—

 

She's trying to comfort her Kuya Fidel as best as she can. Even almost thirty years later, she still feels like an outsider, a stranger. Most days, Fidel doesn't say anything about it, but she can always feel it, especially during times like this—not that there has been a lot. His muscles tense at her touch; it makes him feel uneasy, she can tell, but he's too sad and too devastated about his daughter's death to tell her. The chapel doors open, and Manuel is telling someone they can't go in. Imelda turns to look, and there she is.

She's fighting to be let in, and Imelda's heart stops for a second. Monique focuses all her attention on her old friend instantly, automatically, as though she were the only person there, as though she was the one with a grieving daughter.

Imelda's feet betray her; the sight of Monique has Imelda practically running towards her. She takes no more than five strides until she remembers where she is and whose arms she wants to fling herself into. She stops halfway, a good five, six feet away from Monique, their gazes never faltering. It feels like a lifetime. Fidel isn't saying anything behind her—no one is, as a matter of fact—and so she takes a breath and nods wordlessly, her face softening. Manuel lets Monique go, and Imelda has to excuse herself.

She walks, as fast as she can without disrupting the already-disrupted service, away from Monique, away from every grieving individual—her brother, her daughter, her niece's fiancé and his wretched mother—and out to the hallway. The silence is deafening, until a few moments later she hears Fidel's voice, muffled and distant from inside the chapel, his having found the strength to continue what he was saying.

Imelda finds she's lost hers.

**Author's Note:**

> title from _star mile_ by joshua radin.


End file.
